Summary

This is a simple introduction to writing weathering and redox reactions by hand and by using the Rxn program in the Geochemists Workbench. Its usually the first HW assignment I give in my class "Geochemical Modeling".

Context

Audience

Skills and concepts that students must have mastered

Knowledge of how to write balanced chemical reactions and corresponding equilibrium constant expressions (need to know how to use logarithms). Familiarity with the phase rule and how to interpret activity diagrams.

How the activity is situated in the course

Goals

Content/concepts goals for this activity

Exercise teaches students how to write complex weathering and redox reactions and the corresponding equilibrium constant expressions. It also asks them to use the expressions to answer geochemically relevant questions.

Higher order thinking skills goals for this activity

Development of geochemical models, interpretation

Other skills goals for this activity

Use of the Geochemists Workbench

Description of the activity/assignment

In this homework exercise students learn how to write balanced chemical equations describing weathering and redox reactions by hand and by using the Geochemists Workbench.

Determining whether students have met the goals

It is a quantitative exercise, so it is easy to see if the obtained the correct numerical answers.

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Provenance

John Ayers, Vanderbilt University

Reuse

This item is offered under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ You may reuse this item for non-commercial purposes as long as you provide attribution and offer any derivative works under a similar license.